Wireless Internet access - eduroam

Eduroam (education roaming) is an international, secure system for wireless Internet access, based on the same username and password regardless of where the user happens to be. In Norway, this system is supplied by UNINETT, and wireless Internet access is provided to users at universities, university colleges, research institutions and other institutions that are participants in this international system.

Target group:

Eduroam is available to students and staff at all institutions which have their Internet connectivity via UNINETT, i.e. institutions connected to the research and education network.

Conditions:

The customer must have UNINETT as its Internet service provider, i.e. the customer must be connected to the research and education network.

· The customer must accept the terms and conditions of the eduroam policy.

By connecting your institution to eduroam, you provide your users with secure access to all other institutions supporting eduroam, both in your own country and abroad. Implementing eduroam also means that you will have an 802.1X solution in place locally, which can be used to provide your users with secure wireless Internet access and protect your cabled network from unauthorized devices. 802.1X is a key component in Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), which is recommended and certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance. This protocol is supported by a growing number of products and clients, and is an important step towards making wireless networks more secure.

By taking advantage of the possibilities offered by RADIUS, base stations and switches, any user can be assigned to a specific VLAN dynamically. By using the same log-in profile (eduroam), a user can be assigned to an admin, employee, student or guest network in accordance with applicable privileges.

Even though eduroam is a RADIUS hierarchy, it can easily be integrated with Feide at a later date. The only changes required would be to have RADIUS search a Feide database.

Each individual institution is responsible for training and user support. More information about this can be found here:

UNINETT will provide technical support to the institution’s ICT department.